


fortune cookie

by onhojongtaekey



Category: SHINee
Genre: Fortune Cookie, M/M, for alice, jonghyun/taemin, jongtae - Freeform, side onkey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 08:07:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16059008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onhojongtaekey/pseuds/onhojongtaekey
Summary: Someone wonderful is about to happen to you.or Where Jonghyun is a hopeless romantic who follows fortune cookies as though they hold the secrets of the universe.





	fortune cookie

“I think you take those things too seriously,” the voice crackled through his headset. Jonghyun rolled his eyes, momentarily forgetting the other couldn’t see him and instead opted to sigh exaggeratedly loudly into the mic.

“Look Kib—fuck,” he cut himself off mid-reply, becoming agitated at how he had just gotten hit and lapped _again_  in a matter of seconds. “ _Look_ , Kibum,” he began again, “I’m not saying they’re like, one hundred percent real, but hear me out.”

“I’m listening.” The younger replied half-attentively, having heard the same story multiple times over the course of a week, something new always being added nearing the end. He wasn’t tired of the overly excited boy’s rapidfire speeches, per se, and he liked to think he only had Jonghyun’s best interest in mind. Kibum was just protecting him from himself and his sky high hopes, he rationalized. He shook his head out of his thoughts, zoning back into Jonghyun’s rambling.

“...and then it said ‘You will be rewarded for your efforts,’ and just like that! The next morning, I got a call from that soloist I composed for a while back, Choi Minho, and he offered me pretty much triple what I pay for monthly rent to write and compose his next comeback album.”

If Kibum hadn’t heard this same story recounted to him over lunch last week, and then again when Jonghyun called him while Kibum was spending the night at Jinki’s house three days ago, he’d be thrilled for the guy.

“I’m happy for you, Jonghyunnie, really,” Kibum spoke, ramming into Jonghyun’s character again, lapping him on the course and grinning devilishly as the older groaned and let out another curse, “but what are you gonna do if you get a _bad_ fortune cookie? I mean, you practically live by these.”

Jonghyun winces slightly, but answers nonetheless.

“I’ve gotten ‘bad’ ones in the past. But they aren’t really _bad_ ones, that kind of goes against the whole concept of fortune cookies. More often than not, these bad cookies are just warning me to be more careful about certain things.” Jonghyun rambles off more nonsense about the crisp dough cookies before he gets to the real reason he told Kibum to play Mario Kart with him at 10pm.

“Today I got one about a future encounter.” And Kibum sighs quietly, knowing Jonghyun’s hopeless romantic tendencies by heart and silently wishing on every star that he doesn’t act on them this time. “It said, ‘Someone wonderful is about to happen to you.’ I thought about that for quite some time, you know—”

Kibum cuts him off with a light laugh, reminding Jonghyun that he very much is, in fact, _still_ thinking about it, before he allows the older to continue.

“Some _one_ wonderful is about to happen to me Bummie,” Jonghyun almost whispers dreamily into the headset, giving no response when he ends the race in last.

“I hope this someone is a lot better at Mario Kart than you are. Goodnight Jonghyunnie.Tell Jinki I miss him when you see him tomorrow.”

“You know, you can just come visit us at work.”

“I would,” Kibum hums, “but then I’d have to hear your fortune cookie rambles again.”

“Just for that I’m telling Jinki you’re breaking up with him,” Jonghyun jokes.

“Jo—!”

At that, Jonghyun hangs up the call and turns off his TV, rolling into bed but not actually falling asleep for another three or four hours.

 _Someone wonderful is about to happen to me_ , he thought. He snuggled himself impossibly deeper into his bed, wrapping his body tightly around the sheets and drifting off to sleep shortly before the sun woke up.

-

It’s not unlike Jonghyun to routinely forget things that should be important. His wallet, his keys, his glasses, and pretty much every other ‘crucial to daily life’ belonging made that list. The words on his fortune cookies, however, did not. Moments after reading them, he stored them away in his mind for safekeeping, drawing upon the memory of the neatly typed characters every so often—partly as a form of comfort, mostly to keep his days “on track.”

He went through his morning routine as usual and stepped out of his apartment, surveying the halls before he made his way to the elevator.

A cookie he’d gotten a month prior told him to be mindful of his surroundings.

Reaching the lobby, he headed out and made his usual commute to the studio he worked at, humming a melody into his phone’s voice memos app as to not forget it by the time he reached the building. He kept an eye out for the unusual, partly due to his month-old fortune but mostly due to his day-old one. If someone was going to happen to him, he needed to be ready. When Jonghyun reached his workplace, he took note of anything that seemed even slightly out of the ordinary, analyzing the neatly put together rooms and huffing despite himself when everything was as it should be. Maybe he was thinking too much about it, it hadn’t even been a full twenty four hours, but he couldn’t help it. He was restless.

“Jonghyun-ah,” Jinki says, greeting the younger with a lazy morning voice. He slouches himself over Jonghyun’s shoulders as Jonghyun sits faced at his desk, toying with a new song he’s working on. “Good morning.” He presses a light kiss to Jonghyun’s head wrapping his arms more securely around Jonghyun’s front. “I brought you some boba, it’s in the fridge for later.”

“Thanks Jinks,” Jonghyun replies, attention still largely on the screen in front of him. “Kibum says hi, I think he misses you.”

Jinki groans out a response. “I miss him too,” he sighs, pout evident in his voice. “I’ve been working so late and coming back so early that I barely get to see him anymore.”

“I _told_ him he could come visit us here.”

“And what’d he say?”

“He declined, of course,” Jonghyun sighs as he adds the next part, sounding more than a little dejected, “because it means he’d ‘have to hear my fortune cookie rambles’ again.”

Jinki hums knowingly, knowing how important Jonghyun’s fortune cookie letters are to him.

“What did the one you got yesterday say?” he asks, wholly indulging in the younger. Jonghyun’s mood noticeably lifts at the fact that he was  _asked_ to share his precious findings.

“It said ‘someone wonderful is about to happen to you.’ I hope it’s about a relationship, really. It’s not that I’m _lonely_ … I just. I want to have a special person in my life, too. Like how you have Kibum and Kibum has you, I want that too. It seems everyone has their special someone but me… so I’m really hoping that’s what this is.” Jonghyun feels himself getting upset at his admittance of being so dramatically affection starved, forces the thoughts to the back of his head because it’s not even eleven in the morning, and steels himself back to work, sniffling despite himself.

“Oh Jonghyunnie,” Jinki cooed, placing his head on Jonghyun’s shoulder and bringing a hand up to card through his hair, “you have me and Bummie too. We both love you so much.” He tries to reassure the younger that he’s not as alone as he thinks, peppering feather-light kisses to his neck that tickle his skin.

“But you know what I mean, you two are _in love_ with each other,” and Jinki can’t protest that, “and of course I’m happy for you two, don’t take me the wrong way. I just wish someone would be in love with me, and that I could be in love with them too.”

Jinki hums in understanding, still rustling his fingers through Jonghyun’s hair. He stays draped over the younger for a while before he moves to get to work himself, hoping to finish his project relatively early so he can surprise Kibum that night.

Lunchtime approaches rather quickly and Jonghyun is thankful, feeling his stomach digesting itself after having barely eaten the day before. Observant as ever, he walks the memorized route to the Chinese restaurant he frequents and plops down at the counter, tapping out lyrics and a text to Jinki to ask if he wanted anything. He never does, always orders from the Italian place down the street, but Jonghyun got a fortune cookie that told him how routine made trouble easier to spot, so he continued to ask anyway.

“The usual?” It was Tiffany’s voice that brought Jonghyun’s face up from his phone, and he blushed when it appeared that she’d been talking to him for quite a while.

“You know me well,” he responded. “How’s Taeyeon?”

“She’s well, still a little under the weather though. Poor thing.”

Tiffany finished preparing Jonghyun’s meal with ease, handing the smiley faced to-go boxes over to him and telling him to stop by hers and Taeyeon’s when he has the time. Jonghyun smiled warmly at the invitation, fighting the internal coldness he felt at the unintentional reminder of his loneliness.

The walk back to work was typical, lunch went smoothly as always, and as he checked his fortune cookie for any new developments, he struggled to keep a deep frown from setting lines into his face.

‘Good things come to those who wait.’

-

It had been a week since Jonghyun’s hopeful cookie was discovered, and in that time, the remainder of the cookies he’d received alluded to patience and inner peace.

Needless to say, he felt led on and stood up. By a cookie.

Kibum and Jinki hadn’t heard the end of it.

“Do you think this is a sign that you shouldn’t take the cookies literally?” Kibum brought Jonghyun a toasted peanut butter banana sandwich and lemonade, sitting down across from him on the couch as he ate his own sandwich and leaned into Jinki. It was a Sunday, Jonghyun’s off-day, and he’d actually convinced Jinki to take the day to rest, too. Jinki nudged Kibum’s side in a way that said ‘don’t say that, you know how he feels about this,’ but if Jonghyun was bothered by Kibum’s persistent talk about dropping the fortune cookie-led lifestyle he’d developed, he didn’t show it.

“I mean, maybe.” Jonghyun replied, shocking both of them at even considering letting go of this. “But at the same time, not really.”

That made more sense.

“Maybe it’s because I was thinking too frantically about it the day of and the day after. Every fortune I’ve gotten since then has just told me to take things slow. I haven’t really met any new people either, so…” he paused, eyes widening and then he suddenly groaned, burying his face in his hands. “ _God_. There was this guy at the bookstore on Thursday. I go there a lot, like everyday a lot, and I’ve never seen him before in my _life_. _God_.” Jinki and Kibum exchanged knowing glances as he continued. “What if  _he_ was the someone.”

Jonghyun picked at his sandwich frustratedly, not wanting to eat anymore.

“Did you two talk or anything? At least look in the same direction?” Jinki offered cautiously.

“We did,” and he groaned more as he recounted the details, cursing himself for being so oblivious. “I was sat down reading _Demian_ and he came and asked me if there was another copy and I told him yes and led him to where he could find it. How could I have missed that? All this time of being hyper aware of routine and all that fell out of it and I missed _that_.”

“It’s not like you’ll never see him again,” Kibum tried, and even Jinki had to shrug and chuckle weakly at that, because the chance of running into the same person at the same place with no leads was less than nothing.

Jonghyun was a hopeless romantic, and more and more everyday he was becoming more hopeless and less romantic. He put his plate holding his torn up sandwich on the coffee table beside the couch and draped himself dramatically on the other two, spreading his arms around them to wrap them up as well as he could. Burying his face in Kibum’s side, he mumbled out sad words that would’ve broken the hearts of the two boys beneath him if they didn’t know Jonghyun as well as they did.

“It’s okay babe, you’re with us. We’ve got you.” Jinki mumbled softly, petting Jonghyun’s hair.

“We love you.” Kibum added.

It’s not what Jonghyun wanted, but it’s exactly what he needed.

-

Monday passed uneventfully, as did Tuesday, and Wednesday was more or less the same with the exception of Jonghyun almost stepping into dog crap.

He was beginning to doubt his cookies.

He left the studio early on Thursday, feeling physically ill from wearing himself out at work as a way to distract from the disappointment the cookies brought and continued to bring. Jonghyun caught a taxi that day, too weak to even walk the short distance. Heartbeat thrumming in his ears, he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep away this endless fatigue. The taxi ride was nothing special, but what was new.

Jonghyun paid and made his way out, stopping abruptly as his eyes focused on the entrance to the apartment complex he lived in.

 _He_ was there; and he looked to be moving in.

Energy came back to Jonghyun immediately, world seeming to illuminate all around him and colors growing more vibrant than before and he _hoped_ so badly that this was the second chance he had been desperate to get for the past week.

“Do you need any help with that?” Jonghyun had approached the lean, slightly taller but still visibly younger man with a confidence he knew all too well how to fake, ignoring the nervousness that coursed through his veins.

“Oh sure, thank you so m…” the man trailed off, thankful expression morphing into one of recognition as he exclaimed his next words all at once. “Oh it’s you again! We met at the bookstore last week, you helped me find a copy of _Demian_. Thank you so much for that, I’ve been trying to find it everywhere,” and then “I’m Taemin. I take it you live here?”

_Your infinite capacity for patience will be rewarded sooner or later._

“Jonghyun! And I do, actually, room twenty four on the fifth floor.”

 _Good things come to those who wait_.

“The odds are in my favor,” Taemin smiled. “Fifth floor, room twenty five. Can you hold this?” He handed Jonghyun a box, bending over to pick up another one.

“Alright, this is the last of it. I’m still moving stuff in, I started last week but got sidetracked and overwhelmed because it’s just so much.” Taemin stopped for a moment to get through the doors, balancing the boxes the best he could and then made a beeline to the closest elevator, stepping into the small space with Jonghyun following shortly after.

Taemin had a kind of nervous energy about him, like he was talking to keep his nerves from becoming  _too_ evident. As he chattered on about everything he looked forward to, how much he wanted to make this new city his home, Jonghyun's heart fluttered considerably at how one person could be so naturally endearing. Behind the jumble of boxes, Taemin muffled out a sentence Jonghyun was barely able to make out.

“I consider it my good fortune to have run into you again.”

The elevator dinged, signalling the two had reached their destination and Jonghyun had to fight the blush on his cheeks from becoming too evident, grinning widely behind the boxes and almost stumbling upon reaching the door to Taemin's apartment, setting the boxes down shortly after. Taemin placed the boxes in front of his door with a huff and retrieved his keys from his pocket, turning to face Jonghyun with a thankful grin.

"I really do. Thank you for your help Jonghyun-ah. I'll be seeing you around right?"

Jonghyun prayed he wasn't just imagining the hopeful lilt of the boy's voice, nodded his head softly and answered just as softly with a "yes," that he'd "definitely be keeping in touch" with him, bidding him a hopefully temporary farewell.

_Someone wonderful happened to you._

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is like.. simultaneously lowkey rushed and longer than i anticipate. wrote it on a whim but! lmk if i should continue with this? maybe


End file.
